Panthers ride second-period flurry to 3-1 win over Stars
■ Aaron Ekblad and Keith Yandle scored in a second-period offensive onslaught to secure the win. Chris Driedger, starting for the fourth time in five games, was strong.
PANTHERS 3, STARS 1
Somehow, someway, the Florida Panthers were going to get the puck past Dallas Stars goaltender Anton Khudobin.
It took an onslaught in the second period to make that happen.
The Panthers put 29 shots on goal — a franchise record for a single period — and finally got a pair past Khudobin, then held on for a 3-1 win over the Stars at the BB&T Center on Monday. It was the first of eight matchups between the teams this season and the first of three over the next four days. They play again Wednesday and Thursday.
Overall, the Panthers had 52 shots on goal; the Stars, 25. The Panthers’ single-game shots record for a regulation game is 55, set on Nov. 3, 2010, against the Atlanta Thrashers.
“The first [period] we were off to a little bit of a bumpy start,” defenseman MacKenzie Weegar said,
“but we found our legs in the second and it showed. We just kept coming at them and at them.”
Florida has won six of its past eight games to improve to 12-3-2 on the season. Dallas, playing its first game in 11 days, has lost six consecutive games (three in regulation, three in overtime or shootout) and is 5-4-4 on the season.
Defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Keith Yandle scored for Florida in that second period to erase an early 1-0 deficit.
Ekblad tied the game 8:41 in with a slap shot from just beyond the left circle on a feed from Weegar. It was Ekblad’s sixth goal of the season, tying him with Montreal’s Jeff Petry and Edmonton’s Darnell Nurse for the most goals by defensemen through Monday’s games. Ekblad
and Petry have each played 17 games. Nurse has played in 20.
“That was the one we needed,” Weegar said. “... We kept it rolling after that.”
Yandle’s go-ahead goal, a slap shot from the point, came at 18:18, two minutes after Florida’s Patric Hornqvist and Dallas’
John Klingberg were penalized for fighting. It was Yandle’s third goal of the season.
Aleksander Barkov scored on an empty net with 27.8 seconds left in regulation. It was Barkov’s seventh goal of the season.
DRIEDGER’S NET TO LOSE?
Chris Driedger continues to make his case for more playing time — and coach Joel Quenneville continues to give it to him.
Driedger, the Panthers’ 26-year-old backup, has started four of the team’s past five games. He’s 40-0 in those games and 7-1-1 overall through nine starts this season.
On Monday, he stopped 24 shots. The lone goal he gave up was a Blake Comeau wrist shot on a loose puck less than five minutes into the game.
On the season, Driedger has a .929 save percentage and has held opponents to two goals or fewer in six of nine starts.
“He has had a good stretch here,” Quenneville said after the team’s morning skate Monday. “He has an opportunity right now to get a little bit more than the odd game and he has taken advantage of it. We will see how it plays out. We expect [Sergei Bobrovsky] to be pushing him and getting the net back.
“But the opportunity is there for Driedge to play a little bit more than normal and we’ll see where that takes us.”
As for Driedger’s perspective on the second period, during which he faced just four shots on goal while his offense kept the puck primarily in Dallas’ zone?
“It was a pleasure to watch,” Dreidger said. “The guys went to work. I haven’t seen a period that dominant in a long time.”
PYSYK’S RETURN
For the second time in a week, the Panthers faced a player who was on their roster last season.
It was Vincent Trocheck on Feb. 17 when the Panthers faced the Carolina Hurricanes.
On Monday, it was defenseman/forward Mark Pysyk, who spent the previous four seasons with the Panthers and tallied 62 points in that span (17 goals, 45 assists).
“It is going to be a little weird going back to a place I spent the last four years,” Pysyk told reporters Sunday. “It will be weird, but it is a new journey and I am on this team now. Hopefully we can go in there and … get three wins.”
After Monday, the Stars will have to settle for a chance to win two of three.
ROSTER MOVE
The Panthers on Monday reassigned defenseman Riley Stillman to their taxi squad. Forward Scott Wilson was sent from the taxi squad to the Syracuse Crunch, the joint AHL affiliate of the Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning.
THIS AND THAT
● The Panthers remain undefeated in the games immediately following a loss, going 5-0-0 in such situations.